Cloud Computing

Data Breach Report Urges ‘Know Your Adversary’

April 25, 2013     John DeGaspari
blog
The findings of a comprehensive data breach report released by Verizon this week suggests that no industry is immune to cybercrime, and that the experiences of other affected industries can provide lessons for healthcare providers to safeguard their data.

Putting Patients First When Disaster Strikes

April 25, 2013     Richard R. Rogoski
article
For Maureen Gaffney, M.H.S., R.P.A.C., R.N., disaster recovery strategy is not just about building in redundancy or backing up files; it’s all about making sure that the care of each patient is not interrupted, even if an unforeseen disaster strikes.

The Cloud and Dr. Kaufmann

October 19, 2012     Gabriel Perna
blog
In the past, I’ve written about how many CIOs from major hospital and healthcare systems are expressing doubts about how cloud computing can be used to provide better care while saving money. While a level of pessimism is definitely there, people like Robert Kaufmann, M.D., from the Kaufmann Clinic, are making me realize the path to that $5.4 billion may be paved with smaller providers, more willing to take a leap into the cloud.

Research Highlights Growth in Healthcare Cloud Computing

July 3, 2012    
news
According to new research from MarketsandMarkets, the global healthcare cloud computing market will be worth $5.4 billion by 2017. The report which studied the cloud computing market over the five year period from 2012 to 2017, found that in healthcare it will grow at an annual compounded rate of 20.5 percent in that time period.

Mt. Sinai Researchers Tout the Cloud for Medical Image Sharing

May 3, 2012    
news
Researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in conjunction with four other academic medical institutions are touting the use of cloud technology for medical image sharing. According to the researchers, patients are saying the cloud offers a faster, more efficient way to store and distribute their medical images than current options.

Risk and Reward in the Cloud

April 19, 2012     John DeGaspari
article
More hospitals are looking to the cloud as a viable way to store clinical, imaging, and financial data. Experts acknowledge its advantages, but caution it’s a step that requires careful planning and vetting of potential cloud vendors.

Weighing Pros and Cons of the Cloud

April 17, 2012     John DeGaspari
article
As hospitals face challenges of moving to the electronic medical record, often while operating under tight budgetary constraints and with small IT staffs, moving data to a cloud platform is becoming an attractive option to some. Making the right decision depends on carefully weighing risks and benefits, according to weighing risk Michael Gaasche, manager with the business development department of Smart Devine & Company, LLC, a Philadelphia-based consultancy and, prior to that, IT director with the Department of Health and Opportunity for the city of Philadelphia.

Tips for Negotiating a Cloud Vendor Agreement

April 5, 2012     John DeGaspari
blog
With the digitization of medical records, there has been a lot of interest lately in storing information on the cloud. But storing data on the cloud—particularly clinical data—also presents risks to the hospital, which is legally responsible for the data it stores on the cloud is safe. That’s a tall order, and there are plenty of potential pitfalls to avoid when negotiating a contract with a cloud vendor. “The cloud is great, but the trick is that the customer doesn’t have control of the data, and yet they are still responsible for it,” says Diana J.P. McKenzie, partner and chair, Information Technology and Outsourcing Group, Hunter, Maclean, Exley & Dunn, P.C., Savannah, Ga.

The Cloud: Trust, but Verify

March 29, 2012     John DeGaspari
blog
Cloud computing is becoming a valuable tool for hospitals, and there are good reasons for that, as more organizations digitize their clinical systems. I recently had a conversation with Richard Temple, executive consultant at Beacon Partners, Inc., Weymouth, Mass. Typically, a lot of the computerization by hospitals has centered on financial systems, and hospitals typically wanted to keep that information close, housing it in their own data centers, he says. But things were more manageable, in terms of what needed to be available. After all, if a billing system went down at night, lives didn’t hang in the balance. But with the advent of the computerization of clinical systems, hospitals are faced with requirements of uptime and redundancy. “Hospitals aren’t necessarily geared up to support a computing infrastructure of that magnitude, so they look to the cloud,” Temple says.

Cloud-Based Communication

March 22, 2012     John DeGaspari
article
Fairview Health Services, a 10-hospital, 42-clinic health system based in Minneapolis, has implemented a cloud-based communications platform that, among other things, allows its physicians to conduct virtual video “visits” with their patients, and schedule follow-up video visits.

Stepping Up to the Cloud

March 13, 2012     John DeGaspari
blog
There has been a lot of publicity lately about the benefits of cloud computing in healthcare, although hospital systems have been taking a cautious approach when it comes to moving certain applications to a cloud platform.
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